New film with the Daily Mirror: Save the Independent Living Fund #SaveILF

Today from 12.30pm, there will be a vigil to support disabled people who are taking the government to court to fight for the Independent Living Fund. Join the vigil at 12.30pm at the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand, WC2A 2LL.

The ILF is a fund that profoundly disabled people use to pay for the extra carer hours and personal assistants that they need to live independent lives. Without that fund, disabled people face lives in carehomes.

"What the welfare reform minister and his colleagues in the DWP are doing is not just callous but ­downright dangerous.

The DWP says local councils will be given extra funds to pay for people’s care. But campaigners say that money will ­disappear into the black hole of council fund shortfalls because it won’t be ringfenced.

The closure of the ILF will radically change 22-year-old Nadia Clarke’s life.

“I feel so worried,” Nadia, from West Yorkshire, says. She is deaf and has cerebral palsy. She uses a special computer to communicate, but also relies on the help of personal assistants funded by the ILF.

“It will be terrible because I will feel so depressed and unable to take part in society. My parents will have to look after me and may even have to give up their paid work. My life will be worthless.”

"Whatever the outcome of the court case today, the fight to save ILF is far from over and disabled people refuse to allow themselves to be railroaded into care homes or worse to Dignitas just to satisfy the whims of millionaire politicians."

"Without the ILF and in the context of the crisis in social care, disabled people will be entirely reliant on already over-stretched local authorities to meet their support needs.

The amount that the government has committed to devolve to local authorities to help them meet their new responsibilities is short of the amount spent by the ILF on direct support for disabled people. It also does not take account of all those disabled people who would have been eligible for support from the ILF before it was closed to new applicants in 2010. Since then disabled people have ended up trapped in their homes without basic needs such as washing or feeding being met."